Teammates
by LGold
Summary: Night after night, it's the same patrol, and Xander's getting worried. Set early season 6.


It had been a pretty okay day, Xander decided. First there had been pizza; always a sign of a good night ahead, if one plagued by the demon of indigestion. And now, it was time for…

'"Excellent Adventure" or "Bogus Journey"?' He lifted one video case in either hand, waggling his eyebrows in what he hoped was "suitably-enticing" rather than "scary-sex-offender." Anya wriggled in her seat a little, clearly unsure of what part she was supposed to take in this bizarre ritual. Dawn rolled her eyes, before looking to Tara. Tara looked to Willow. Willow protested for a token thirty seconds before settling down with a big grin on her face. Honest to all gods and/or goddesses, the girl hadn't changed since she was eight.

'"Excellent Adventure" it is!'

Anya had stayed quiet through all of this.

Bill and Ted had just arrived in Hell halfway through their Bogus Journey when they heard light, deliberate footsteps in the hallway and the sound of the door swinging open. Buffy stood in the threshold, frowning a little. She glanced at the TV without cracking a smile before lifting a stake, a cross and one perfectly shaped eyebrow.

Right. Xander looked out the window of his apartment, then at the clock, but he didn't really need to. She always found them, somehow. Every night, ten minutes after sunset, like clockwork, for patrol.

_That _was the word: clockwork. Buffy was like clockwork.

Brrr.

Xander switched off the TV, snatching a leftover slice of cold-and-slightly-gross-but-still-pizza pizza, and made to follow Buffy, not even deigning to answer the not-too-quiet _"Ew"_ from Dawn. Dawn didn't bother trying to follow the rest of the Scoobies. She'd learnt that Buffy just pushed her back every time she tried.

Then again, that was pretty true for the rest of them. Just… not in the patrol scenario. In every other one, though… but Xander was keeping his mind resolutely away from such thoughts. It had been a pretty okay day. He wanted it to stay that way.

The graveyard. It was always the graveyard, night after night. Okay, it wasn't always the _same _graveyard. At least you could say that for Sunnydale: it had some pretty cool variety in the cemetery department.

"Hey!" said Xander.

"Hmm?" said Willow, walking on his left, hand entwined with Tara's. Buffy, walking in front of them and Anya, didn't look back.

"Sunnydale: come for the blood-sucking demons, stay for the graveyard industry!"

"Speaking of sucking…" said Willow, face scrunched up into a frown, head on one side.  
"Okay, okay. That was terrible. You know, I think some Hellgod's stolen my funny."

"That was supposed to be funny?" asked Anya. Willow gave her a slightly odd look, but Xander shrugged it off. It was hard to tell when Anya was being sarcastic or when she was just being… Anya. Somehow, Willow never seemed to give her the benefit of the doubt, but as frowny faces and snappy greetings didn't mean released trolls and broken arms, Xander was okay to live with it.

The jokes, though, were another matter. Still, he wasn't going to take full responsibility for it. After all, it was always the graveyard, night after night, and night after night he felt obliged to come up with a graveyard joke. It was like his job, or something. Still, they were wearing thin.

"Vampire."

It was the first word Buffy had spoken all night, the first Xander had heard her speak since the night before, and despite his relief at hearing her voice, he slipped immediately into action-man mode. Despite, you know, not really being an action man, but he could dream, and he could definitely talk the talk. Talking the talk was what Xander was _good _at.

"Where?"

But she didn't answer. Instead, eyes focused, she executed a perfect somersault over the tomb to the team's left; Xander winced as he heard the thud of high-heeled boots (last year's – Buffy hadn't gone shopping for a long time) on undead flesh. Willow, Tara and Anya stood still with him. There was the sound of a scuffle, a thud, and then a sort of groan as the night air rushed into the space on the other side of the tomb where, moments before, there had been a vampire, and now there was only a pile of dust. That was it. Not even a pre-staking quip. Just the slayer, pure and simple and businesslike. Night after night.

Cautiously, Xander peeped around the side. Anya peeped with him. She seemed a little hesitatant about something (not normal for her) but appeared to resolve whatever issue she had quickly (more normal.)

"Go team?" Xander forgot his worry about Buffy – who continued her thousand-mile-stare into the pile of dust at her feet – and turned to her, incredulous. She looked totally innocent. She always looked innocent.

"Ahn – what?"

"Isn't that what I'm supposed to say?" Always innocent. And, looking at the faces of Willow and Tara – and of Buffy – Xander knew that none of them knew whether Anya was just being Anya or, in her own way, asking the question that they all wanted to ask.


End file.
